KUANTAN (Bernama): A mechanic lost his life savings totalling RM27,400 on Friday (Sept 13) after he transferred the money to an account purportedly belonging to Bank Negara, on the instructions of a scammer posing as a police officer.

TARAZA, Colombia (Reuters) - Dozens of Colombian soldiers dug up coca bushes under the tropical sun on a steep hillside near the Caribbean coast. Shovels in hand and guns slung across their backs in case of a sniper attack, they are part of their government's stepped-up efforts to slash cocaine production under pressure from Washington.

(Reuters) - Harvard University expressed remorse on Friday for accepting millions of dollars in gifts from Jeffrey Epstein in the years before his 2008 sex crimes conviction and said it regretted its association with the disgraced financier.

SANTA MARIA OSTULA, Mexico (Reuters) - Surrounded by armed men, Commander "Toro" said Mexicans taking the law into their own hands in the western state of Michoacan will not heed government calls to lay down arms because it would leave them at the mercy of violent gangs.

BOSTON (Reuters) - Actress Felicity Huffman, the first parent set to be sentenced in a wide-ranging U.S. college admissions cheating scandal, faces possible prison time on Friday after pleading guilty to paying to rig her daughter's entrance exam.

LIMA (Reuters) - Peruvian security forces will start eradicating illegal coca plants for the first time in a lawless jungle region that produces most of the cocaine in the country, the government announced on Thursday.